FERNELEY, John
English painter. He was apprenticed to his father, a master wheelwright, until 1801 when, encouraged by John, 5th Duke of Rutland, he went to study in London with the sporting artist Benjamin Marshall. Little of Ben Marshall’s broad and vigorous technique is evident in his pupil’s later free and refined style, though some of Ferneley’s early works, such as those painted on his visits to Ireland between 1808 and 1812 have echoes of his master.
At various intervals from 1806 to 1853 Ferneley’s work was exhibited at the Royal Academy, but he set up his main painting practice in Melton Mowbray, which was rapidly developing as a centre for the sporting fraternity. The records of his busy studio were kept in account books from 1807 to 1860.
Ferneley’s group painting John, Henry and Francis Grant at Melton (1823; Melton Mowbray, Carnegie Museum) is typical of his finest compositions, depicting huntsmen, horses and hounds. He also specialized in large panoramas of hunt scurries at full stretch, for example The Quorn Hunt (c. 1830; private collection).
His sons, John Jr and Claude Lorraine, were competent sporting painters, though not in the same exalted class as their father.
